I'm not a climbing geek by any stretch, but I do enjoy hearing about the exploits of climbers. It kind of captures that magical feeling I got as a kid reading about famous explorers (before I was...
I'm not a climbing geek by any stretch, but I do enjoy hearing about the exploits of climbers. It kind of captures that magical feeling I got as a kid reading about famous explorers (before I was old enough to understand the icky context of colonialism that pervades so many of those stories, but are heavily sanitized in children's tales). Anyways, this isn't just another hard climbing route, it's got a great emotional hook even for people who aren't into climbing.
The story: in the early 2000s, James Pearson was a climbing wunderkid who, well, thought he was hot shit. He committed one of the cardinal sins of climbing: he severely overestimated the difficulty of a new route he'd climbed. Essentially asserting that he'd climbed the hardest route of its kind ever, which most of the community felt was a gross exaggeration. Especially since he had failed to complete what was at the time considered the hardest trad climbing route, which was graded E11 in the British grading system, and here he was claiming to have established an E12. The backlash from the UK climbing community was so severe that he chose to leave the country entirely. Now, years older and wiser, he's established a new route which he thinks might genuinely be E12. This video shows Adam Ondra, one of the world's best climbers, repeating the route, and largely agreeing with Pearson's assessment of its difficulty.*
In other words, it's a bit of a personal redemption story. Pearson wrote a personal essay about the experience, which is really more of a meditation on the process of maturity. I recommend it.
It's also interesting to see how much time Ondra spends experimenting in order to minimize the risk of injury. He's trying to qualify for the Olympics this summer, after all. The hardest move on the route requires hanging off a very small single-finger hold that Pearson says he did using his pinky. Ondra determines that doing it that way is too likely to cause an injury and eventually settles on an approach that's technically more challenging but less injury prone. And that was borne out when another climber, Seb Berthe, who would become the third person to complete the route a few weeks later, actually injured his hand on that exact move (source). It's easy to assume that top athletes are just superhumans who simply don't get injured due to superior genetics or something, because we don't often get to see all the little things they do to minimize risk. It also says something about experience and safety precautions that Ondra is more worried about injuring his pinky than he is about hitting the spiky "guillotine" rock formation right underneath him.
*Note: subject to confusion between different grading systems, of course. Both Ondra and Seb Berthe largely agree with Pearson about the actual difficulty of the climb, but neither is well versed in the British climbing grade system.
I think it's pretty safe to say Ondra actually IS the world's best climber at this point, even though he may not be the world's best competition climber right now, which varies year to year. E.g....
This video shows Adam Ondra, one of the world's best climbers
I think it's pretty safe to say Ondra actually IS the world's best climber at this point, even though he may not be the world's best competition climber right now, which varies year to year. E.g. Ondra only got silvers in lead and bouldering last year at the World Cup, and Jakob Schubert is tied with him for World Cup medals, but has one more medal than Ondra at World Championships. But Ondra is without a doubt the best overall climber when trad is also taken into consideration, IMO.
Thanks for sharing this video, BTW. I'm subscribed to Ondra's channel but hadn't actually seen this one yet for some reason. ;)
I don't disagree that he's the best at what he does, but I just think it's hard to fairly compare between radically different types of climbing, like sports climbing and high-altitude alpinism....
I don't disagree that he's the best at what he does, but I just think it's hard to fairly compare between radically different types of climbing, like sports climbing and high-altitude alpinism. That's the context for "merely" calling him one of the best.
Sure, I agree it's difficult to compare athletes in such a varied sport... but Ondra actually does pretty much all of the different climbing styles, and does them all insanely well (including...
Sure, I agree it's difficult to compare athletes in such a varied sport... but Ondra actually does pretty much all of the different climbing styles, and does them all insanely well (including free, crack, urban, and traverse climbing), which is precisely why he is the overall best climber, IMO. :P
I've always wanted to see Adam or someone else strong like Stephano(actually does he ever climb trad?) try Jacopo Larcher's ungraded climb Tribe, wow, as I'm writing this comment and googled it,...
I've always wanted to see Adam or someone else strong like Stephano(actually does he ever climb trad?) try Jacopo Larcher's ungraded climb Tribe, wow, as I'm writing this comment and googled it, Pearson was the first person to repeat it, and left it ungraded as well. He's also repeated Rhapsody E11, I think that's enough a hell of a CV if people were questioning his capabilities.
I'm not a climbing geek by any stretch, but I do enjoy hearing about the exploits of climbers. It kind of captures that magical feeling I got as a kid reading about famous explorers (before I was old enough to understand the icky context of colonialism that pervades so many of those stories, but are heavily sanitized in children's tales). Anyways, this isn't just another hard climbing route, it's got a great emotional hook even for people who aren't into climbing.
The story: in the early 2000s, James Pearson was a climbing wunderkid who, well, thought he was hot shit. He committed one of the cardinal sins of climbing: he severely overestimated the difficulty of a new route he'd climbed. Essentially asserting that he'd climbed the hardest route of its kind ever, which most of the community felt was a gross exaggeration. Especially since he had failed to complete what was at the time considered the hardest trad climbing route, which was graded E11 in the British grading system, and here he was claiming to have established an E12. The backlash from the UK climbing community was so severe that he chose to leave the country entirely. Now, years older and wiser, he's established a new route which he thinks might genuinely be E12. This video shows Adam Ondra, one of the world's best climbers, repeating the route, and largely agreeing with Pearson's assessment of its difficulty.*
In other words, it's a bit of a personal redemption story. Pearson wrote a personal essay about the experience, which is really more of a meditation on the process of maturity. I recommend it.
It's also interesting to see how much time Ondra spends experimenting in order to minimize the risk of injury. He's trying to qualify for the Olympics this summer, after all. The hardest move on the route requires hanging off a very small single-finger hold that Pearson says he did using his pinky. Ondra determines that doing it that way is too likely to cause an injury and eventually settles on an approach that's technically more challenging but less injury prone. And that was borne out when another climber, Seb Berthe, who would become the third person to complete the route a few weeks later, actually injured his hand on that exact move (source). It's easy to assume that top athletes are just superhumans who simply don't get injured due to superior genetics or something, because we don't often get to see all the little things they do to minimize risk. It also says something about experience and safety precautions that Ondra is more worried about injuring his pinky than he is about hitting the spiky "guillotine" rock formation right underneath him.
*Note: subject to confusion between different grading systems, of course. Both Ondra and Seb Berthe largely agree with Pearson about the actual difficulty of the climb, but neither is well versed in the British climbing grade system.
I think it's pretty safe to say Ondra actually IS the world's best climber at this point, even though he may not be the world's best competition climber right now, which varies year to year. E.g. Ondra only got silvers in lead and bouldering last year at the World Cup, and Jakob Schubert is tied with him for World Cup medals, but has one more medal than Ondra at World Championships. But Ondra is without a doubt the best overall climber when trad is also taken into consideration, IMO.
Thanks for sharing this video, BTW. I'm subscribed to Ondra's channel but hadn't actually seen this one yet for some reason. ;)
cc: @rosco, in case you missed it too.
I don't disagree that he's the best at what he does, but I just think it's hard to fairly compare between radically different types of climbing, like sports climbing and high-altitude alpinism. That's the context for "merely" calling him one of the best.
Sure, I agree it's difficult to compare athletes in such a varied sport... but Ondra actually does pretty much all of the different climbing styles, and does them all insanely well (including free, crack, urban, and traverse climbing), which is precisely why he is the overall best climber, IMO. :P
I've always wanted to see Adam or someone else strong like Stephano(actually does he ever climb trad?) try Jacopo Larcher's ungraded climb Tribe, wow, as I'm writing this comment and googled it, Pearson was the first person to repeat it, and left it ungraded as well. He's also repeated Rhapsody E11, I think that's enough a hell of a CV if people were questioning his capabilities.